It’s dawn, the tank’s full, and the open road lies before you outstretched like the silken ribbon from a wonderful Christmas present. Travel-more specifically for many Americans, automobile travel-is full of the thrill and promise of exploring unknown places on our own, on our own terms. Forget the information superhighway. Just give us the highway.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, about 80 percent of American vacationers travel by car. Ken Reinhart of Darien is banking on them to fuel his in-home travel business called, not-surprisingly, 48 States by Car.
Simply put, the purpose of 48 States by Car is to provide the automobile traveler not only with information about the superhighway but unique information about lodging, restaurants, attractions and side roads, too, Reinhart says. The business has been a lifelong dream of this bearded and bespectacled 54-year-old former junior high school physical education teacher.
Offering more than a motor club route map and travel book, Reinhart individually researches each trip to accommodate his clients’ personal specifications. Details such as church services, radio stations, road conditions and restaurants that accommodate special dietary needs are just part of the information he provides.
“I would not go on another driving vacation without getting our trip planned by Ken,” Richard Kaffka of Naperville said recently. He and wife Valerie took their two children, both under 10 years old, on a trip to the Ozarks aided by Reinhart’s service.
“Ken provided us with two routes, a scenic route and an express. He gave us restaurant recommendations. All good. There were no clinkers. He even provided games for the kids to play in the car,” Kaffka said.
This is a service, Reinhart is quick to point out, unavailable from any other source. “Triple A, Mobil Travel Guide, none of them will personalize automobile trip information the way I do. I know. I’m a member of all the (motorist services),” Reinhart said.
Indeed, according to Darien travel agent Norma Wagener, “What Ken Reinhart does, thoroughly researching all resources available for automobile travelers, is too time consuming for travel agents and motor clubs. He does offer a unique service. I’ve referred clients to him.”
“She can refer clients to me and I can refer clients to her because we are not competitors,” said Reinhart. Travel agents work with airlines, railroads, cruise ship lines and major hotel/motel chains on a commission basis, he explained.
“They don’t charge the client for their service because they receive commissions from the businesses. I don’t get a commission from anyone,” Reinhart said. His client pays for the service, he said, and the client wins as a result.
“If a family wants to stay in motels that charge less than $50 per night, I’ll find them. If they want to eat in restaurants where meals cost under $5 per person, I’ll find them,” said Reinhart.
“No motel that charges less than $50 per night is going to be able to afford to pay me a commission. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that travelers have what they want,” he said.
To determine what they want, Reinhart has clients complete a questionnaire. He asks everything from how many hours they want to travel in a day to food and restaurant preferences, religion (optional) and taste in radio stations.
Reinhart’s clients are not only local. He has testimonials from satisfied customers who live as far away as Washington state. Additionally, clients who fly to a location, then rent a car find his service invaluable, he said. Whatever their special needs, Reinhart is delighted to help. No request is too unusual.
Some clients, he said, want to stay only on working farms. Others ask to be routed past particular attractions such as outlet malls or professional sports teams’ spring training camps. The options are as numerous as snowflakes. Another client, he said, wanted all overnight accommodations located close to a coin-operated laundry.
Reinhart, who started 48 States by Car in 1990, loves to tell the stories. Between 1990 and 1993, he had approximately 30 clients per year, he said. At about $70 per client, he said, laughing, “I made maybe $35 a week.” This year he estimates he has served more than three times that number of clients, and prices have gone up, but not much.
Reinhart’s fees start at $80 per vacation week and increase at $10 intervals for each added week up to three weeks. Above that, it’s negotiable, he said. Clearly, it’s not the money that keeps Reinhart going. 48 States by Car is more than a business. It is also Reinhart’s reason to exist: It is paving the road to fulfillment of his dream.
In 1990, after teaching for 25 years, Reinhart decided he’d had enough. He asked his wife, Judy, also a teacher, if she would mind him quitting his teaching job to start his own travel business. Their son Scot was nearly through college and Ken chomped at the restraint of his teaching job.
“I asked Judy and she said yes,” Reinhart recalled. “I heard her. She only had to say it once. She said she’d probably die at her desk, but I could start my business.”
Judy said, “I’m glad Ken is doing this. He’s so happy. It would be nice to have more space, but I think he made the right decision.”
More space, hmmm. Is she kidding?
“What Canada has to offer is in the master bathroom,” Reinhart said as he conducted a quick tour of the family home. His bureau drawers are stacked high with pamphlets instead of clothing. File cabinets line the walls of the master bedroom.
“This area is the Pacific Northwest. Here is the Southwest,” Reinhart said, pointing to regions of his and Judy’s bedroom.
He opened his side of the closet to reveal stacked file boxes full of other U.S. regional travel information. Maps and posters are tacked to closet doors and bulletin boards. A lone desk is in one corner of the bedroom. There is enough space to get in and out of bed.
Furniture in the family’s would-be living room supports more boxes of travel information than visitors. The two-car garage is reduced to a single-car facility by a Berlin Wall of milk crates that extends the length of it.
“Those,” Reinhart said, pointing to the wall of crates, “are full of booklets obtained from tourism bureaus in every state of the union.”
In front of the family room television there are 14 tidy stacks of various travel pamphlets, each three to four inches high. “That’s a trip I’m working on right now. It’s not quite done,” Reinhart explained. Each stack represents a different leg of a client’s five-day trip to the Boston area.
Reinhart’s home is repository for untold amounts of travel information, with more arriving daily. As he conducted his tour, the mailman arrived with an eight-inch stack, mostly travel brochures, and UPS delivered a case of guide books.
“I would computerize if I could. But each trip is so different. Each client is so unique. In four years and over 200 clients, I’ve never duplicated a trip,” Reinhart said. Folks have visited the same locations but had different needs and interests, he said.
Reinhart relishes the unusual request. “One client said the family wanted to go spelunking. As soon as I looked it up in the dictionary, I was able to route them past as many caves as possible,” he said.
“An author wanted to be routed past burial sites of Wild West legends. She was researching a book,” Reinhart said. Her route took her from Dodge City through Arizona, Nevada, South Dakota and Colorado.
“I finally found someone (on the telephone) who thought she knew where Doc Holliday’s grave was. She said it hadn’t been taken care of and weeds were overgrown all over it, but she’d have to check with her husband for the exact location,” Reinhart recalled.
“I silently prayed that she didn’t have to wake him up-it was the middle of the night here-because this was one of many long distance calls for this client.”
Reinhart makes upwards of 50 telephone calls per client trip plan, he said. Some are 800 numbers, most are not. It takes an average of two to three weeks to plan a motoring trip, including at least one evening meeting with the client, if possible.
What Reinhart delivers is a cardboard box (“granola boxes I get from Market Day,” he said) weighing about 10 pounds. It is chock-full of maps, brochures, pamphlets and travel books. He even includes promotional gifts for the children.
Key, however, are the hand-drawn map, travel times and distances, restaurant recommendations, lodging recommendations, lists of attractions, church services and a list of radio stations by location. All are completely and neatly hand-written on yellow legal paper. The maps are marked with red lines designating travel routes, green lines for return routes and blue lines for side trips.
“The guy’s got an incredible number of resources, and he’s been everywhere,” Kaffka said. His praise was almost unrestrained.
Joseph Lenhoff of Morton Grove, a three-time Reinhart client, distinguishes previous automobile trips as “pre-Ken.” He compares a vacation with Reinhart’s service to being guided by a very knowledgeable friend.
“What I like best is that Ken’s instincts are good. If he says a restaurant or hotel is good, I feel I can trust his judgment,” Lenhoff said.
Reinhart admitted, “I’ve been to every one of the 48 contiguous states at least three or four times, and every time I go I learn a little more about this great country of ours.”
Even if he didn’t admit it, that truth could be guessed by checking out the aging silver/maroon Ford Econoline van parked in the driveway of Reinhart’s home. From the rust spots on the body to the insect-stained grille, say nothing of the nearly six figures logged on the odometer, this buggy’s been around. The real tipoff, though, is its vanity license plate, “US BY CAR.”
Lord knows, if this great-great-grandchild, once-removed, of Henry Ford’s Model T could talk, it might have some wonderful tales to tell. Never mind, Reinhart will tell them all. For him, visiting places is only part of the fun of traveling-arguably the smallest part.
“I may get up in the morning and suggest that we take a trip to Fargo, N.D.,” said Reinhart, “for no other reason than I can drive there and back in four days.” Along the way he’ll write down names and addresses of interesting attractions and note the good restaurants where he and Judy have eaten. In addition, he’ll note the number of miles between comfort stops as well as wheelchair accessibility.
“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive,” Reinhart said, quoting Robert Louis Stevenson. No one travels so hopefully as a person pursuing a dream.
